1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to supporting flooring at the juncture of materials of different heights, at the transition at the juncture between the materials, where the transition is generally desired to be unnoticeable to people walking on flooring over the juncture or where wheeled vehicles will not be jostled or upset when crossing transition at the juncture.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is often a juncture in floors made of different materials, since the floor often has areas of different heights. In many institutions, factories, exhibitions halls, shopping malls, transportation facilities and the like, floors of hard materials such as tile, marble, granite, brick, quarry stone or ceramic are frequently adjacent to floors of concrete or wood. The adjacent floors usually meet at a juncture, and there is an interface between the floor area of the relatively high height and the floor area of a relatively low height. Transition flooring is often put over the floor areas to make it easier and safer to walk across the floor areas and the juncture, and to make it easier for wheeled vehicles to traverse the juncture of the floor areas. It is common to ramp up to the higher floor area made of hard materials.
However, the transition flooring, which can be flexible vinyl or rubber based sheet or tiles, or a carpet material, or a hardened resilient material such as vinyl composition or hard rubber tiles, must cross the juncture. If no transition support is provided, there could be a sharp incline in the flooring at the juncture. People could trip or at least be surprised when they step on the flooring at the juncture, especially if they are unaware that the difference in heights exists. In addition, wheeled vehicles could be jostled, tipped or possibly overturned if they reach an unexpected abrupt change in the heights of the flooring. Moreover, the transition flooring could become frayed, cracked or torn over time, especially if the juncture is in an area of high traffic.
In most instances in commercial buildings where the sharp transition between floor materials of different heights is made more gradual, a worker uses a trowel to lay by hand cementious material such as a latex underlayment at the juncture between the high and low flooring levels. This is time consuming and expensive, and the time to lay the material depends on the ability and skill of the troweler. Once the troweler has laid the cementious material, he or she uses adhesive to connect the flooring material to the cementious material. In other cases, workers stack old tile to reduce the steepness of the juncture between the adjacent flooring areas.
The difference in height between the two areas of the floor as discussed above are often not great, often around ¼ inch, so the problem has not been previously and seriously addressed. Architects have no standard for addressing the problem. Compensating for the difference in heights between adjacent flooring areas is a real problem.
There are various patents which have been issued relating to the support of carpets near walls, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 530,096 (Eckman 1894), 1,070,273 (MacLean 1913), 1,401,490 (Rathjens 1921), 1,483,941 (Kasson 1924) 1,833,732 (Barrows 1931), 1,988,603 (McLaren et al. 1935), 2,677,145 (Adams 1954), 3,086,262 (Krantz 1963) and 4,187,656 (Lutz 1980).
However, the foregoing patents are not directed to the support of flooring at the juncture between adjacent floor areas of different heights. U.S. Pat. No. 1,128,061 (Schroeter 1915) is directed to metal edge binding in linoleum, which is also not a problem to which the present invention relates. Rather, Schroeter provides an edge binding which securely holds the floor covering in place and protects the edge of same. Schroeter wants to protect the flooring against, for example, breakage or wear by shoes or truck wheels, but Schroeter is not concerned with people or vehicles crossing the floor. U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,953 (Greenfield 1995) relates to an edge molding strip for protecting the floor covering between first and second floors of different heights, but it relates to the objects of the present invention in only a very general way. U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,798 provides a wedge shaped finishing member for draining water away from a bathtub, and it too is not directed to the problems to which the invention is directed.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,142,832, Bell, discloses a mat construction made of a multiplicity of rubber blocks arranged in an overlapping, laterally abutting relationship. The mat has a nosing strip running along its edge. Bell does not recognize the problem of providing a transition between two levels of flooring.